Process Man
by actingwithportals
Summary: Wilson was many things, but he was not crazy. At least, so he thought.


_"_ _And it's go, boys go. They'll time your every breath. And every day you're in this place you're two days nearer death. But you go."_

 _-Ron Angel_

Wilson was many things, but he was not crazy.

Did he have a habit of talking to himself? Yes, but that was hardly unusual. Many of his colleagues and even professors in his field held the same habit. Was he perhaps a little eccentric? Yes, but once again, as were many members of the scientific community. In fact, he wasn't nearly as eccentric as some others that he came across during his time at the university (particularly the ones who studied philosophy). Did he happen to hold strange beliefs that others would find unusual? Yes, but that was a part of learning. One could not expect to learn more about the world if they were not willing to look into every possibility and examine it with an open mind. That was simply how one was expected to learn. Now, did he ever experience the phenomena of sensing things that others could not, such as perhaps hearing a voice that belonged to no one around or seeing movement out of the corner of his eye that belonged to no humanly figure?

… Yes.

However, that did not make Wilson crazy. He was simply more alert to things that others had not yet learned to know. Or so, that's what he told himself. Never mind the frequent lights in the sky that would greet him each night while on a stroll to clear his head, nor the whispers that tried to distract him from his scientific endeavors. They were but a nuisance, a simple mirage of the mind that could be explained away as make believe or, better yet, undiscovered phenomena. Whatever the answer may be, Wilson would not let anything deter him from his path towards greater understanding of the world around him. He dared never speak of these things, not to his family, nor to his doctor. Not even the closest of friends could be trusted with this secret, and Wilson did not come by such friends very easily. No, he would make sense of it in his own time, on his own terms, in his own way. He was not crazy. Wilson Percival Higgsbury was not crazy.

At least, so he thought.

It started with the radio, when a voice spoke louder to him than the whispers ever had before. He had tried to ignore it, even ventured to throw the damn thing out, but his curiosity got the better of him and he instead decided to entertain the voice that came from the other side. It wasn't until the voice began offering him something he couldn't possibly turn away that Wilson became concerned. Whether this voice was real or not, it knew his greatest desire. Knowledge. And being the ever-vigilant scientist that he was, Wilson did not dare turn away such an offer. He accepted the knowledge, and every negative factor that would come with it.

After the radio came the knowledge, and after the knowledge came the machine. Wilson had no understanding of what it was he was building, almost as if he were instead in some sort of trance, but build it he did. Many days and many questionable methods later, the machine was complete. All that was left to do was turn it on, and Wilson's world would be forever changed.

Only two types of people listened to mysterious voices in radios: crazy people and scientists, and Wilson would be damned if he didn't fit into only one of those two categories.

It only took a moment of hesitation and further prodding from the voice to urge Wilson on, flipping the switch that would permanently change his fate. It was hardly more than an instant before the machine reacted, and with no further ceremony aside from sickly heinous laughter from the radio, Wilson found himself spirited away through the floor boards, in the clutches of two shadowy hands. He didn't have the time to scream, to even blink; his world was gone.

Wilson said he wasn't crazy, and that made him a liar.

* * *

"Say pal, you don't look so good."

Wilson blinked, sun shining down brightly overhead. His entire body felt sore, as if he had just run four miles, which was impossible seeing as his body wasn't the picture of physically fit, leaning towards the smaller, scrawnier side of the spectrum.

Carefully, he pulled himself up into a sitting position, finally opening his eyes fully. A shadow was cast over him, and Wilson looked up into the direction from which it came. Standing before him was a rather tall man, dressed in a nicely pressed suit and holding a cigar between his fingers.

"Who…?" Wilson began, rubbing his eyes blearily.

"You better find something to eat before night comes!" the man instructed, as if he had done this a dozen times.

Wilson started to speak, but was rendered speechless as the man before him disappeared in a plume of smoke. Startled, Wilson darted back, hardly believing his eyes. He rubbed them again, blinking repeatedly. The smoke still remained, slowly evaporating into the air around him. It hadn't been his imagination, had it?

"You are not crazy," Wilson muttered to himself, a mantra he had adopted over the last few years. "Magicians disappear into smoke all the time. It's a party trick, nothing more."

Slowly, Wilson pulled himself to his feet, stretching as best as his sore body would allow. For the first time since he had awoken, Wilson took the time to look around himself. He was in a large, open field, sparse trees littering the ground, and a handful of flowers popping up in patches amongst the grass. If he listened carefully, he could hear bees buzzing and the sounds of a nearby brook.

"How the devil have I ended up out here?" Wilson mused. "Surely I couldn't have sleep walked all this way?"

It occurred to Wilson that he had no idea where 'here' was. His home resided deep in the mountains, and from where Wilson stood, he could see nothing but flatlands for miles.

It didn't take long for the panic to begin setting in. His hands threatened to shake, and for a moment standing felt like too difficult a task. Wilson began muttering to himself, trying to find the right words to comfort his conscious. However, nothing seemed to ease the growing terror in his mind.

"Alright Wilson, pull yourself together," he urged himself. "What is the last thing you remember, let us start there. See, I was in my home, working on a new experiment late into the night. Oh!"

The memory hit him like a ton of bricks. The radio, the knowledge, the machine, the shadowy hands that pulled him into the floor, everything came flooding back.

Legs wobbling, Wilson dropped to his knees, protectively putting his hands to the sides of his head. He had been tricked, pulled into something he had never agreed to, yet had been foolish enough to sign his life away without knowing the full circumstances. The voice on the radio, that was the voice that had spoken to him earlier. That man in the suit… it was him!

Wilson shot back to his feet, head spinning from the sudden movement. It hadn't been his imagination, after all. The voice was real, and consequently so was this world. What had the man said? Something about finding something to eat before it became dark? Wilson looked around again, taking in the scenery with more detail. The sun was high in the sky, possibly signaling that the time was around noon, and there were puffs of clouds lazily floating through the air above him. As for the world around him, he could see numerous bushes with plenty of berries just waiting to be picked, and off in the distance what looked like the start of a great wood.

Wilson was far away from home, that much was certain. However, he couldn't sit around and wonder at his plight. He needed to act. That man had given him one warning, and Wilson was going to heed it well.

Taking a breath, he set off.

* * *

Making one's way through this world was easier said than done.

Wilson soon realized that the sheer size of this place was beyond his initial understanding. For what felt like hours he walked and walked, collecting anything useful that he could find, and yet it felt as if he had gotten nowhere in all that time. It didn't take him long before he reached the wood, but once he arrived it seemed it would be impossible for him to leave. The trees just stretched on and on, never ending in a labyrinth of wood and leaves and upturned earth from the sheer number of roots traveling through the ground. And in all this time, all Wilson had to show for his travels were handfuls of berries and a few twigs.

It was getting on in the day; darkness would eventually be upon him. The twigs would hardly make for a decent fire, and any hopes of getting proper logs were dashed. It hit him with just how desolate he was in this land. He didn't even have the luxury of his pocket watch, forgotten back in his laboratory in his home oh so far away. Even if Wilson had wanted to attempt to craft an axe from raw materials, he would be sorely disappointed as he hadn't even come across the smallest amount of flint. He was utterly, and hopelessly stranded.

"Damned, deplorable, desolate land," Wilson muttered. "If that man dares to show his face again I'll wipe that smug look off his face faster than he can say 'radio'. Honestly, if he went through the great trouble of getting me here, he mustn't have intended for me to freeze to death on the first night, right?"

The only answer Wilson received was a faint whispering, too dulled to make out any comprehendible words.

Wilson huffed. "The last thing I need is for you to start tinkering with my brain," he sneered. Normally, he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of a response, but he was already tired, hungry, and growing more and more wary by the moment. Patience was not his current virtue.

Sunlight broke through the branches of the trees as he walked, lighting the way against the darkening shade of the forest around him. If circumstances were more favorable, Wilson would have almost considered this place beautiful. However, circumstances being what they were, Wilson wanted nothing more than to see the comfortable view from his living room window, safely tucked away in his favorite chair.

He couldn't help but allow his mind to wander to thoughts of home. His house up in the mountains, pleasantly isolated from the hustle and bustle of city life. His laboratory filled with all of his experiments and contraptions and various scientific texts to refer to when he was in search of something new to study, or simply in the mood for reading material. And on the days he did long for human contact it was only a mere stroll down the mountain to the nearest village, where he could quench his need for pleasantries such as scones and coffee and walks by the lake and those delicious little tea cookies the old woman across from the general store would always offer him with a warm and friendly smile and oh how much Wilson longed to be home.

It was in the midst of these thoughts that Wilson suddenly stopped, his dear remembrances interrupted by a faint rustling coming from far to his right.

"Hello?" Wilson ventured, curiously eyeing a nearby bush where he swore he heard the sound coming from.

It was only a moment before the rustling continued, and before Wilson had time to react a large cat-like creature shot out, darting its way up a nearby tree and easing its way into a hole in the center.

Wilson sighed. "Of course, there would be living creatures in this place. But what on earth sort of species was that? It almost looked like a cat had been bred with a raccoon?"

He was left to ponder this for only a moment before his thoughts stopped short. Coming from the distance was a sound that was by no means a mere rustling in a bush.

"…Did you hear that?" Wilson asked no one in particular, feeling his blood begin to run cold.

There was no mistaking it. Far off, but getting closer every moment, he could make out the faint sound of something moving. No, something running. And it was coming towards him.

That's when the howling began.

Wilson was by no means a running man, but in that moment his feet carried him far more swiftly than they ever have before. He didn't know where he was going, all that mattered was getting away.

The howling only grew in volume, the sound of several padded feet slamming against the earth heard not far off behind Wilson's retreating figure. Whatever they were, they were fast, and Wilson had no way of outrunning them.

It took all of Wilson's willpower not to trip on the roots beneath his feet, keeping his eyes glued to the ground in order to anticipate the next disturbance in the earth. His lungs were beginning to burn, and the howling behind him only became louder and louder. He wasn't going to make it.

Chancing a glance behind him, Wilson removed his eyes from the world in front of him, running blindly ahead. If he were going to die here, he at least wanted to see what it was that would be his undoing. A brief glance was all Wilson needed. Dark eyes surrounded by midnight fur stared back at him, an array of sharp teeth snapping at his back. Wilson had come in contact with wolves before, but none of them ever compared to the monsters he was faced with now.

Holding back a scream, Wilson returned his attention to the world ahead, but it was a moment too late. Before he had time to register the approaching obstacle, Wilson was already smacking into it, his head coming hard in contact with the thick tree trunk before him, slamming him back into the ground. Dazed, Wilson could do nothing more than lay there, as the world grew darker around him. The last thing he remembered before the darkness pulled him under was wild howling, and a distinct smell of…?

…Burnt fur?

* * *

Wilson opened his eyes, and for a moment, thought he hadn't.

The world was dark around him, an impenetrable blackness that seemed to go on for miles. For a moment, Wilson was convinced he was still unconscious. No darkness that deep could exist in the world of the waking.

It was a sound that eventually roused him to full awareness, a crackling of a fire, followed by the smell of something foul. Wilson wrinkled his nose; it wasn't the smell that had followed him into his slumber, instead of burnt fur it smelt more like…

Burnt flesh.

Wilson shot up to a sitting position, just now becoming aware of the world around him. Though the darkness continued, it was not absolute. Around him there was a warm glow of a campfire that had only just come into focus, and across the fire stared a pair of unblinking eyes.

If this were any other day, Wilson might have greeted those eyes with something akin to relief, or even courtesy. However, this was not a normal day, and while it was comforting to see another pair of eyes that held the same amount of intelligence as his own, the rest of what they held left Wilson feeling frozen.

The eyes weren't cold, in fact they almost seemed to blaze with the same intensity as the fire before them, but they rung with a certain level of distaste, enough to make Wilson feel small. His eyes traveled lower to a sharp mouth that was curled into a scowl, and lower to a pair of soot covered hands, wringing themselves in their owners lap as if they were desperate to wrap themselves around an unsuspecting neck.

Wilson had never in his life been so intimidated by another human being before.

The two stared at each other, neither daring to make a move, neither willing to be the first to break this unspoken spell.

Several moments passed, and Wilson was the first to break. He absentmindedly scratched at the side of his head, thinking carefully of how to approach this person in conversation. Clearly, she was not willing to start it herself, obviously content to stare at him until those fiery eyes burned a hole in his skull.

"Er…hello?" Wilson tried; not his best introduction, but it was a start.

The woman did not respond, only continuing to stare with apparent disapproval.

Wilson swallowed, finding his nerves in far worse shape than they had been when he was being chased by those…things.

Those things…where had they gone? How had he managed to escape them unscathed? He did a quick once over of himself, checking for any injuries, but finding nothing.

"Now how the devil did I manage that?" he wondered out loud to himself, feeling a sense of relief washing over him.

"You didn't manage anything," the woman spoke, startling Wilson out of his thoughts.

"Pardon?" he asked, looking back up to her, perhaps too quickly.

"If I hadn't shown up you'd be a hound's waste at this point," she remarked coolly, wringing her hands tightly together. Wilson could have sworn he heard something crack.

"Hound?" Wilson questioned, not entirely following her meaning.

"Those things that you were foolish enough to try and run away from," the woman explained. "Hounds."

"A bit bigger than an average hound, I'd wager," Wilson muttered. "How did you stop them? They were bent on tearing me to shreds."

The woman's hands stopped their wringing, instead one of her hands coming to rest on what appeared to be some sort of staff at her side. Wilson chanced a look of inspection, noting that the staff was barely more than a glorified twig with some sort of strange red stone tide to the top. It hardly looked like something that would be combat ready.

The woman took note of Wilson's inspections, sighing tiredly to herself. "You haven't been here very long, have you?" she asked.

Wilson shook his head. "Just arrived today," he said with faux cheerfulness.

The woman picked up the staff, resting it in her lap. "You'll learn soon enough," she said cryptically.

Wilson wasn't sure what she meant by that, but was honestly too afraid to ask. "Well, I suppose some thanks are in order," he responded. "I don't know what you did, but you saved my life. Thank you."

The woman only huffed. "Don't expect it to happen again."

Wilson laughed nervously. "Noted," he said. "Where…where exactly are we, by chance?"

The woman shrugged. "Purgatory, Hell," she mused. "I call it the Constant. But your guess would be as good as mine."

"How is it that we've arrived here?" Wilson questioned, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees.

"Don't you remember?" the woman asked. "How badly did you hit your head?"

"Well, I remember the general gist of it," Wilson argued. "But what I meant was, how is it that we've come to this place? What sort of technology could have transported us to a place so far from home?"

The woman stared at him with a look of confoundedness. "You really don't get it, do you?" she asked.

Wilson shrugged. "If you would be so kind as to enlighten me, that would be very much appreciated."

The woman sighed. "I don't know what 'technology' you're speaking of, but clearly this isn't an act of practical origins. Whatever forces brought us here, it isn't something natural."

Wilson gulped, a faint prickling buzzing in his ears. The whispers threatened to take over his attention, but he did his best to shake them away. Now was not the time.

"You aren't suggesting…sorcery, are you?" he questioned.

The woman shrugged. "After what I've seen, I'd wager anything is possible at this point."

Wilson had…opinions on the magical forces. Being a scientist, he tended to think along the lines of practicality, something magic rarely fit into. However, being a scientist ran both ways. While he couldn't believe in the unproven, he also couldn't argue that magic itself was, in any ways, unproven at all. There was no evidence to say such a thing couldn't exist; they simply hadn't found a way to prove that it did exist yet. And by his own philosophy, anything was possible until proven otherwise. When it came to magic, Wilson decided to keep far away, not out of displeasure or disbelief, but rather, out of fear. If such a thing were real, it was something far beyond his understanding, and that terrified him.

Of course, there were many things in his life that exceeded his understanding.

Wilson wasn't a fool, he knew his…experiences weren't average. Though he convinced himself he wasn't crazy -he'd be damned if he allowed himself to think so- he knew that what was happening to his mind could only be explained in two ways: he was either losing his sanity, or there were forces beyond his understanding at work.

The latter was almost more preferable.

Then came the radio, and the knowledge. What little he remembered terrified him. It wasn't science, at least no science of which he was aware. That doorway he built was certainly not something of his world. Those hands that drew him into the floor was far from human. No, it wasn't something he understood at all. The woman was perhaps right; sorcery just might be what was in place here. Whether or not the state of his mind was connected, that was to be later determined. For now, he had to focus on the present, and that was understanding this new world in which he found himself.

Wilson shuddered. "I'd wager you might be right."

The woman looked off to her left, hands gripping her staff more tightly. Wilson held his breath, waiting for the woman to make some sort of action. After a moment of hesitation, she eased her hold and relaxed.

"The darkness is exceptional tonight," she muttered, clearly displeased.

"I don't think I caught your name," Wilson pointed out, trying to take both of their minds off of something other than the impending peril that seemed to teeter around the edges of their fire.

The woman looked back at him. "Willow," she answered simply.

"Pleasure to meet you, miss Willow," Wilson responded. "I am Wilson P. Higgsbury."

Willow snorted. "You say that like you're proud of it," she mused.

Wilson frowned. "Should I not be?" he questioned.

Willow shrugged. "Just seems like an unfortunate name to me," she explained.

"Well, Willow isn't exactly a prime name, either, you know," Wilson argued, crossing his arms.

Willow smirked, but otherwise said nothing. The two sat in silence, both resting their eyes on the fire before them. It was getting low, and just as Wilson was about to comment on this Willow picked up a small log and set it in the fire, a small smile spreading across her face.

"It's late," Willow commented. "I recommend getting some sleep. It's going to be a long day tomorrow."

Wilson had no idea what she meant by that, but didn't have the energy to argue. Though he had only recently awoken, he could feel the pull of sleep tugging at the edges of his mind. Rest would perhaps be a good idea; God knows it had been a long time since he'd gotten any proper respite. Taking heed of her suggestion, Wilson lowered himself back to the ground and allowed himself to fall back into the abyss of unconsciousness.

It wasn't long before Wilson felt himself stumble back into the world of the waking. As he opened his eyes he noticed that the world around him still remained dark. Looking to his right, he could see the fire still burning brightly in the night, and across the fire, sitting where she was before, Willow dosed with her head resting upon her knees.

Wilson pulled himself up, shakily standing to his feet. He felt sore from all the running he had done earlier that day, and his stomach rumbled from the lack of food he'd had most of the day. If he remembered correctly, there were scores of berry bushes around the forest. Perhaps there would be some not far from the campsite? Looking to the sky, it was clear there was no moon in sight to give off light. Going out into the dark would be dangerous, but Wilson concluded that it couldn't be any worse than their small ring of light. If anything were out there, it would have attacked them by now.

Straightening his waistcoat, Wilson picked a direction and began walking. He would only go a little ways, he decided, just to see if any berry bushes were to be found close to their fire. The darkness in front of him almost seemed palpable, as if it were a living thing that could be touched and felt. The whispers only grew in his mind the further away from the fire he got, and Wilson could have sworn he saw something moving in the night, but decided it was nothing more than his imagination. It wouldn't be the first time.

He ventured further, barely able to see two feet in front of him through the blackness now. He should turn back, he should stay near the fire. But something drew him further, a twisted curiosity that went beyond a desire for simple berries. It was almost like he was being pulled along on a string, the darkness inviting him further. Just a few more steps, a few more and he'd turn back.

Wilson stopped dead in his tracks, the world having gone quiet. Not even the whispers dared to interrupt the silence that now hung around him. As if noticing for the first time, Wilson looked around himself, realizing just how far into the night he had traversed. The fire was nothing more than a timid beam of light behind him, like a distant memory threatening to be forgotten.

"Wilson, what have you done?" he muttered to himself. Turning on his heel, he began to head back, the silence broken only by the sounds of his footsteps.

It didn't last for long.


End file.
